Thursday

Anyone who attended last April’s jam-packed Boston Kids Comics Fest in Jamaica Plain probably won’t be surprised that for the free event’s second year, it’s movin’ on up.

“Last year, actually, my church was the host,” explained festival co-founder Jonathan Todd of Boston, author of the upcoming graphic novel “Timid.” But this year it has moved to the more-expansive setting of Todd's alma mater, Pine Manor College, which “allowed us to do more workshops, more panels” -- basically more of everything, said Todd.

And it’s a good thing, too, because Todd and his growing group of planners and organizers are on a mission that they’re eager to expand.

“A lot of comic cons, they have a lot of kind of graphic content, either violence or sometimes profanity and things like that, so we just wanted a place where it's really safe and fun for kids and families,” he said. “So that's kind of the main goal.”

But far from the only goal. “A big part of our mission is trying to inspire kids to create their own art, to find their own voices, and that's what the workshops are about,” noted Tony Davis, another festival co-founder and owner of The Million Year Picnic in Harvard Square, one of the oldest comics shops in the country.

“We (even) have one table reserved for kids who want to come and sell their own comics,” Davis noted. “So that's really the thing, to make it something that passes on the love of comics from one generation to the next.”

A kids comics explosion

It’s a great time to be doing just that, Davis argues, given the explosion in recent years of comics-related content and “hybrid books” (like “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”) aimed at young readers or all-ages.

“Some of the finest books coming out in comics today are being created in that market,” he said. “Things that are open, honest … not just autobiographical comics but comics with adventure, comics with science fiction, a little bit of horror … There's a lot of good stuff coming out.

“What we were looking for is to grow the festival so that we can showcase a large chunk of what's really good out there,” he said.

It’s a goal exemplified by this year’s headliners, said Davis: Somerville's Erica Henderson, comic artist for Marvel’s “The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl”; Raul the Third, creator of “Lowriders in Space”; and Joel Christian Gill, who has written four graphic novels about African-American history -- two volumes each of “Tales of The Talented Tenth” and “Strange Fruit.”

“I think (the headliners) speak to the diversity of what's out there -- work that's fun, informative, culturally broad,” explained Davis, who acts as the festival’s “creator liaison.” “I think people are going to be really excited to see Erica, and I think it's going to be good to expose Joel and Raul to even larger audiences because their work is really excellent.”

Leading to reading

It’s work from artists like those and the other festival participants -- who include folks like “Marty Pants” and “Off The Mark” creator Mark Parisi of Melrose and Salem’s Shelli Paroline and Braden Lamb of the “Adventure Time” comics -- that’s led to the kids comics boom, the organizers say, arguing it’s also a trend that’s good for overall child literacy.

“I think what's amazing about a comic or a graphic novel is that you have to read the pictures with the words, you have to understand what's happening in between the panels and make a lot of inferences,” pointed out Liza Halley of Arlington, a librarian at the Fenn School in Concord and one of the festival’s key planners, alongside librarian and professional fundraiser Meena Jain.

“I know a lot of teachers are very concerned it's not real reading, right?” Halley said. “And it's really frustrating because it actually is almost even harder. You have to do a lot of work when you’re reading a graphic novel or a comic.”

And it’s work that pays off in the long run, said Halley. “We definitely have seen that if you get a kid really excited about reading one graphic novel, it leads to another, (then) leads to another, and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, there's this chapter book that's very similar …”

Davis said that’s always been his experience.

“My mom was an elementary school teacher and there was never this differentiation in our household between comics and books, high and low culture or art -- if it involved reading my mom was in favor of it,” he said. “And you know, I might read the Uncle Scrooge Genghis Khan adventure, ‘The Lost Crown of Genghis Khan,’ and I might go to the library the next week and check out a book on Genghis Khan. They work hand in hand together.”

Parents will have the chance to see for themselves April 27 if they take their kids to the fest for a chance to create comics, learn what it takes to become a cartoonist or just discover new work by more than 30 family friendly cartoonists, illustrators and authors. (And meet a few of their favorite superheroes as well, courtesy of the cosplay group Band of Heroes.)

And if you’re lucky, your child might take after Davis’s son, a student-athlete who was not an especially frequent reader -- until he took up reading sports manga (Japanese comics).

“It gets him to slow down a bit and it puts him in the mood to read other stuff as well,” Davis said. “Reading is about building habits around things.”